Deceased May 22, 2018
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In Memory
Thomas Fletcher “Tom” Worthen ’66 of Des Moines, Iowa, and Venice, Italy, died on May 22, 2018, three days after suffering a heart attack while walking. He is survived by his wife, Amy (Namowitz); his daughters, Shana Worthen (Colin Stewart) and Maria Worthen (Paolo Saccà); and his grandchildren, Wren, Giacomo and Pippin.
Born in 1944 in Little Rock, Ark., Tom was the middle son of William Booker Worthen and Mary Sandlin Fletcher Worthen. He attended Episcopal High School, in Alexandria, Va., to finish school after segregationists closed Little Rock’s high schools. He once commented about racism in the South, “There’s racism in the North too.”
Tom loved poetry and could recite quite a bit of it. We took a reading course in Yeats together from Professor John Moore.
His Ph.D. in art history was from University of Iowa. An inspirational professor of art history at Drake University for 35 years, he specialized in Italian Renaissance art and was loved and admired by his students.
In Venice, Tom and Amy restored an apartment in a historic palazzo. Rowing Venetian style, he gave canal tours to friends and family.
He loved life and appreciated the small and beautiful things in nature. He had a great sense of humor and an infectious laugh. One of his favorite lines from Shakespeare was “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
Tom and Amy met in Florence. A month before he died, Tom emailed me, “The marriage you helped start 50 years ago (April 20, 1968) today has worked out fairly well, so far.”
Tom was a most kind, gentle, warm, thoughtful and caring person.
Years after we graduated, Tom sent me, to my great surprise, an oil painting of me he’d done at Amherst. It hangs over my mantel.
Al Leisinger ’66